Did You Ask for a Memory Test With Your Physical?

If you think you’re losing your memory and fearful about Alzheimer’s or dementia, you will be disappointed to discover that modern medicine has very little to offer you in the way of a test. But that may be changing.

A small study of several hundred people who were without symptoms of dementia showed that over time, a simple exam called the Memory Binding Test can be a reliable predictor of Alzheimer’s or dementia. The test subjects were given the test and then followed up for a period of 10 years. Those who had below normal scores on the test were far more likely to develop amnestic mild cognitive impairment, or aMCI. The test takes only about 10 minutes and is easily administered by a trained person.

Such binding tests measure whether adults can remember various features of an object or an event in a whole way. In other words, can a person remember that their car keys, which they brought in with their groceries, must have been left in the kitchen? It is how we remember names in relationship to faces. As people age, this associative memory weakens. Deficits in this kind of memory have been shown previously to be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease.

The test developed for this study was designed by Dr. Herman Buschke at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

The Obamacare medical program authorizes free tests of this sort as part of its wellness features. They are supposed to be part of an annual physical for Medicare patients, but many patients do not know to ask for them, and many doctors have not incorporated the tests into their physicals.

About Stephen Petranek:

Stephen Petranek’s career of over 40 years in the publishing world is marked by numerous prizes and awards for excellent writing on science, nature, technology, politics, economics and more. He has been editor-in-chief of the Miami Herald’s prestigious Sunday magazine, Tropic, and has covered a wide range of topics for Time Inc.’s Life magazine. His presentation 10 Ways the World Could End is one of the most original and most watched TED talks of all time.